Prominent anti-Qaddafi figure’s corpse found after 19 years

Corpse of Libya’s former foreign affairs minister, known for his stance against the slain Libyan strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi’s regime, was found after 19 years of him being missing.

Libya’s prosecutor confirmed that the DNA matched Mansour al-Kikhya after finding his body in an office belonging to Libya’s intelligence. Kikhya was kidnapped in Cairo in 1993.

While the Libyan authorities didn’t announce officially the finding, Mustapha Abou Shacour, the deputy prime minister of the interim government, wrote an obituary on his Facebook page.

Kikhya’s brother Mahmoud also told the London-based ASharq al-Awsat newspaper in a phone interview that “the DNA test was positive, and it matched Mansour’s family.”

The forensic doctor, meanwhile, still needs to identify specifics over Kikhya’s death, but his brother said “all the details of the body, in terms of skin and height prove that it is Mansour… and there is a stab in the chest.”

The brother vowed that time will reveal a lot of information “as Mansour spent four years in prison and died in 1997.”

The brother said that the Libyan authorities are planning an official funeral in presence of Kikhya’s wife and children, adding that this will not put an end to the family’s long suffering.

“We will go after the perpetrators, and this will require us to come to Egypt, as my brother was kidnapped there.”

Al-Senoussi’s confession

The recently captured Libya’s former head of intelligence Abdullah al-Senoussi, who is also Qaddafi’s brother-in-law, confessed of kidnapping Mansour, saying that the Libyan Ambassador in Egypt, Ibraheem Al-Bouchari, was responsible for the operation.

However, Bouchari was killed later in a mysterious car accident. Libyan sources said that Qaddafi was behind Bouchari’s killing since the ambassador knew many secrets that the strongman didn’t want to be divulged.


The Libyan authorities had found three other bodies and initially thought that they found the Lebanese Shiite Imam Moussa Al-Sadr, who disappeared with two of his escorts in Libya on August 1978.

But evidence proved negative, opening the door to find out if the DNA matched other missing figures.

?Mubarak’s dicey role

The investigation around the circumstances of Kikhya’s disappearance in Cairo might reveal the special relationship between the regime of the ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Qaddafi.

Libyan sources told Asharq al-Awsat that allegations might reach President Mubarak himself and some of his senior aides because of their role in facilitating the kidnapping of Kikhya and failing to protect him.

The sources also accused Mubarak of not raising the issue with Qaddafi when Kikhya was kidnaped.